North Carolina - Thugs Beat Up 73-Year-Old With Bat

A Union County man, his mother and girlfriend are horrifically accused of beating their elderly neighbor with a baseball bat over the weekend. They have since been arrested and are now in jail.

Police identified the suspects as Eddie Lowery, 30, Patricia Benton, 49, and Lowery’s girlfriend, Elisha Hicks, 34, as behind the violent assault on 73-year-old Willie Adams Saturday night at his home in Bigham Road near Waxhaw.

The beating the old man sustained was so violent and bad that he remains hospitalized in critical condition.

Authorities said the suspects lived a few doors down from Adams. Lowery was known to frequently visit Adams.

Detectives working on the case believe that the trio of Lowery, Benton and Hicks wanted to rob the elderly man. They went to Adams’ home Saturday night and attacked him with a baseball bat when he opened the door.

Adams was hit repeatedly with the bat before being robbed of his wallet. The suspects are also accused of breaking the window of Adams’ vehicle and stealing cash from inside.

Rescue for the badly-beaten elderly only came a day after the attack when his cousin found him the next day and he was rushed to Carolina’s Medical Center in Charlotte. Bobby Bradley, Adams’ cousin, said: “He wasn’t looking too good, and I called out his name, and he couldn’t talk.”

The trio of Lowery, Benton and Hicks were charged with assault with a deadly weapon with intent to kill, inflicting serious injury, robbery with dangerous weapon, conspiracy to commit robbery, first-degree burglary, breaking and entering a motor vehicle, and larceny. The detectives working on the case have asked for prayers for the victim and his family at this difficult time.